Eric S. Raymond responds to SCO's DoS claims

Thursday, 8 May 2003, 1:17 AM EST

In a recent press release, SCO suggests that the Linux community may be responsible for the denial-of-service attack on its servers that occurred on Friday, May 2nd. This is a baseless slur, unsupported by facts.

Anyone tempted to take it seriously should note that neither the Linux community nor the wider open-source community of which it is part has any past record of such behavior. If we fought our battles in those terms, Windows is a sufficiently vulnerable target that we would have severely hammered certain much larger adversaries years ago.
News accounts suggest that the machines subverted into performing the attack were Windows boxes. It would be more reasonable to suppose that the attack was the work not of anyone in the Linux community but of a Windows-based cracker-underground gang that is sympathetic to us and has decided to fight for the "good guys". If that's so, we reject such misguided assistance. Any pro-Linux crackers out there should stand down *now* and refrain from any such offensives in the future. We cannot accept such help' and remain the good guys.

Let there be no mistake about this. We in the Linux community do *not* regard denial-of-service attacks or any other form of criminal trespass as a legitimate tactic in disputes. Sustained as we are by our shared belief that our open-source development model is a better way, we are too proud to fight dirty.

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